


A little loneliness

by faceslikebirds (bluedreaming), tschenshen (bluedreaming)



Category: Chinese Actor RPF, f(x)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7420738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/faceslikebirds, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/tschenshen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've been flying now for ten million five hundred and seventy three thousand two hundred and ninety four years. Amber wonders how much longer she'll be waiting for Danson to open his eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I can't find you in the body lying next to me

**Author's Note:**

> [poster](http://i.imgur.com/wa0r1jw.jpg)
> 
> Inspired by [I'm Back](https://youtu.be/v9i2poHjWmg) by Danson Tang featuring Amber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from [Ghost](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ao4o-XRU_KM) by Halsey.

Unsent messages have piled up in the folder, days and days and days that she's been sitting here, writing letters to him, waiting for him to wake up, as the stars paint the void outside red, shifting away forever, only a tiny section of blue marking the way they're going. It's nowhere in particular, just away, or at least that's all Amber knows.

She doesn't know anything else.

"Danson will tell you when he wakes up," is all she remembers, but the voice she can't put a face to never said when.

It's hard to count space in time, but Amber's had a lot of time to figure things out. When Danson wakes up, he might want to know, after all.

In Earth years, because that's where he was born, they've been flying now for ten million five hundred and seventy three thousand two hundred and ninety four years, give or take some months because they're travelling too fast to calculate that precisely.

Amber wonders how much longer she'll be waiting for Danson to open his eyes.

She wonders why he went to sleep in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://writetomyheart.livejournal.com/372317.html).


	2. I can't find you in the body lying next to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from [Hurricane](https://youtu.be/FR9G7ioLLmc) by Halsey.

Down on the planets, orbiting the stars racing through space—or maybe it's them racing, sometimes it's hard to tell—Amber wonders what people live like, Homo sapiens and other species, and cyborgs like her.

Amber has never seen anyone besides Danson, floating vertically in his sleeping pod, chest barely rising and falling, eyelids fluttering over eyes that dart back and forth.

People sleep, right?

Amber knows it's true, she's read it, but the knowledge she drinks through her eyes is different from really knowing something. She really knows that she likes drinking milk, for instance, the creamy cool liquid she gulps out of a glass, tipping her neck to get the last drop.

She doesn't know anything about cows, not that the milk she drinks is "real" milk, but it's modelled after cow milk and she can read about cows but she doesn't know anything about them at all.

It's frustrating.

That's how she feels about Danson sometimes. She can sit beside him for centuries, watch him dream, fingers twitching, mouth dripping with tiny sighs, but she still doesn't know anything about him at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://writetomyheart.livejournal.com/372480.html).


	3. in the deep end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from [Hold me down](http://youtu.be/i0Hds_9t8MU) by Halsey.

Happy.

It's one of those human words, human emotions that Amber keeps trying to figure out. What does it mean to be happy? What is happiness?

She reads that when you're happy it might be because something good has happened. But everything in Amber's long long life has been exactly the same. The only thing she's looking forward to is when he'll wake up.

Happiness, Amber decides, is Danson opening his eyes. She wonders what it will feel like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://writetomyheart.livejournal.com/372770.html).


	4. hold it down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from [New Americana](http://youtu.be/QOojyWHtZaE) by Halsey.

The pen is the place where Amber goes sometimes when she needs a quiet, small place. It's a strange name, and doesn't make much sense, but that's what it's called on the blueprints, and when she looks it up there are only vague references to submarines and panic rooms. It's an interesting problem, but when you have a lot of time on your hands, little things like names are both inconsequential and yet crucial.

Like her name, Amber, a photograph of insects trapped, frozen for eternity, suspended in the moment of drowning. Amber wonders who gave the name to her, and what they meant by it.

Another thing to ask Danson, if he ever wakes up. Amber looks at the photographs of insects trapped in amber and wonders what the amber feels like, holding within it sleepers who will never wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://writetomyheart.livejournal.com/373023.html).


	5. I promised myself I wouldn’t let you complete me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from [Is there somewhere](https://youtu.be/686SmDtBOu8) by Halsey.

More than anything else, Amber wonders what it will be like to talk to someone.

Will she say, "hello?" Will he say something?

Will he know who she is?

Amber wants him to wake up more than anything else, but she's also scared. After ten million odd years, it's hard to envision something new.

She leans against the wall, shifts her perspective so that she's lying next to him, separated only by the transparent upper section of the pod.

"Hello," she says, practising for a future that might happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for [here](http://writetomyheart.livejournal.com/373596.html).


	6. If the morning light steals our souls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from [Empty Gold](http://youtube.com/watch?v=hSVQicbrHQo) by Halsey.

He wakes up at eight, by ship time, arbitrary but convenient. Amber isn't there. She's in the pen, not sleeping, because cyborgs don't sleep, at least she she doesn't.

She doesn't see him open his eyes. It's all dark in the pen, the closest thing to sleeping Amber has, and the only alert she has is the siren going off, not the ship-wide alarm, even though she's the only one here, but the small alert that streams text over her eyes.

Patient 001 has regained consciousness. Report to the main cabin.

She's running before she hears the door slide shut behind her, sealing the pen in darkness again.

Danson's eyes are blue. He blinks as she presses the release on his sleeping pod, ship air flooding into his lungs. He coughs, once, twice, three times, and Amber doesn't know what to do.

People die, right?

Danson doesn't look very old, but on the other hand, he's older than she is.

But finally he manages to catch his breath, looking up, tears in his eyes.

"Who are you?" he asks, and Amber doesn't know what to say.

"Where am I?" he asks, looking around at the interior of the ship, and Amber realizes that there are no answers here, only questions.

"Who am I?" he asks finally, catching her eyes in his confused, almost panicked gaze, and Amber wonders if maybe he was supposed to wake up a long time ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://writetomyheart.livejournal.com/373800.html).


	7. when you met me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from [Trigger](https://itun.es/ca/hEOK6?i=982681484) by Halsey.

One of the things Ambers likes best now, strangely enough, isn't so much talking with Danson, though she loves that; a new mind to bounce thoughts off of, a different perspective. It isn't laughing or playing with him either, though she loves doing that too; no one could have told her how much fun little games from old stories could be until she got to play them herself, tag and hide and seek and cat's cradle with a length of synth-string, falling over into giggles when her fingers get tangled up.

What Amber likes most is lying next to Danson while he's sleeping, not separated by a sleeping pod but close so she can feel the warmth of his skin as she listens to him breathing and knows that he's going to wake up.

"Aren't you bored, lying there while I sleep?" Danson asks one time, lying on his side, head resting on the pillow and turned level with Amber's face.

"No," Amber says. "I waited a long time for you." Danson smiles, and drifts off to sleep.

After so long alone, sometimes his presence can be overwhelming, so it's nice to have a moment that's a bit like before, waiting for him to wake up, except now she just lies beside him and doesn't have to wonder if he will.

It's the best promise of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://writetomyheart.livejournal.com/374947.html).


End file.
